Making Danny Almonte proud ...

Team in Little League Softball World Series purposely loses game to eliminate a tougher team. Coach of the team eliminated could tell right away that the team was trying to lose, and calls them on it. So LLWS officials call for a one-game playoff between the teams. Oh, the drama!

I am going to go against the grain here, maybe, and say Washington was well within the established rules and the makeup game is complete bullshit.

Without having researched the format, I'd bet money that this is a tournament that uses runs allowed and run differential as tiebreakers. And whenever you do that instead of just playing a true double-elimination tournament, you are messing around with the meaning of "win the game" (TM Herm) and asking for this kind of trouble.

I am guessing that North Carolina had to allow zero runs and Washington had to allow nine or fewer to advance, hence the pre-ordained 8-0 final. It's bullshit, but it's on the organizers for creating that monster.

A commenter on the Deadspin piece posted the rule that forbids purposefully losing to gain an edge in pool play.

Click to expand...

It's a pretty vaguely worded rule. When a manager or coach instructs his/her players to play poorly for any reason, such
as, but not limited to the following, such action may result in the manager’s removal by the Umpire-in-Chief, and/or removal of the manager, coach(es) and/or team from
further tournament play. 1. losing a game to efect a particular outcome in a Pool Play Format tournament;

It also says it "may result in" the manager and/or team being ejected from the tournament. It doesn't say anything about a hastily arranged makeup game.

But whatever, if you have to put in a rule that says "don't take advantage of our other rules," then you have a problem with the structure.

This is like the situation at the Olympics when the badminton teams were both trying to lose so they could face the easier opponent in the next round. It's the organizers' fault.

--And as a further note, I will say that my son's team is fully capable of playing poorly without any managerial instructions.